Ethereum staking deposits dip due to regulatory pressure and Shapella upgrade

CointelegraphPublished on 2023-04-10Last updated on 2023-04-10

Abstract

1

Ethereum staking deposits have declined slightly in recent weeks due to increased regulatory pressure and the Shapella upgrade slated for April 12.
On April 9, on-chain analytics provider Glassnode reported on the current state of the Ethereum staking ecosystem.
The data revealed that deposit activities are currently low “due to regulatory pressure and the Shanghai upgrade.”
Financial regulators in the United States have been coming down hard on crypto this year. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is adamant that Ether (ETH) is a security and has cracked down on staking despite there being no official legislation from Congress classifying ETH as such.
The Ethereum network will undergo a long-awaited upgrade on April 12. The Shapella hard fork, also known as the Shanghai hard fork, will enable the phased release of ETH staked on the Beacon Chain.
These two factors have caused the dip in Ethereum staking deposits, according to Glassnode.
The firm also noted that major centralized exchanges such as Coinbase, Binance, and Kraken have lost a lot of market share to the liquid staking platform Lido.
“As the dust settled between the three giants, it was Lido who emerged victorious, continuing to dominate deposit inflows as of present,” it noted.
Deposit trends by staking providers have exhibited a clear shift over time with Kraken, Binance and Coinbase jousting for deposit allocations across the Beacon Chain's early days.

As the dust settled between the three giants, it was Lido who emerged victorious, continuing to… pic.twitter.com/yp50NWQ5XJ
— glassnode (@glassnode) April 9, 2023
Lido currently accounts for almost a third of the total amount of ETH staked. This equates to around $11 billion from the 5.9 million ETH on the platform.
Centralized exchanges such as Coinbase take a hefty 25% commission from the staking rewards, with Coinbase’s commissions being even higher for other assets such as Cardano (ADA) and Solana (SOL).
Lido takes a 10% commission and offers the potential of earning additional yields on DeFi platforms through its staking token Lido Staked ETH (stETH). This explains the shift over time as savvy stakers switched to more profitable platforms.
Analysts have predicted that liquid staking platforms such as Lido will get a boost when ETH is released from the Beacon Chain after the Shapella upgrade.
Related: Analysts debate the ETH price outcomes of Ethereum’s upcoming Shapella upgrade
According to the Ethereum metrics tracking platform Ultrasound.Money, there is currently 18.1 million ETH staked in total currently valued at around $33.7 billion and represeting 15% of the entire supply.
After the Shapella upgrade, this will be slowly released for withdrawal in the weeks and months that follow.
Magazine: Features ‘Account abstraction’ supercharges Ethereum wallets: Dummies guide

Related Reads

History's Only Asset with a 100% Win Rate After 4 Years of Holding

**Title: The Only Asset with a 100% Win Rate Over Any 4-Year Holding Period** This article analyzes which major, freely-tradable assets have historically never produced a nominal loss over any rolling 4-year holding window. It concludes that only two distinct categories achieve this: ultra-low-risk contractual assets and Bitcoin. Among traditional risk assets, none maintain a perfect 4-year record. The S&P 500 had negative 4-year periods (e.g., 1929-1932: -64.8%). The Nasdaq 100 fell roughly 60% from 2000-2003. Gold saw a ~47.7% loss from 1981-1984. US real estate declined about 23.3% from 2007-2010. Even long-term US Treasury bonds (e.g., 2021-2024: -19.8%) and corporate bonds can produce 4-year losses due to interest rate and market price risks. In contrast, the first category achieving 100% nominal success includes assets like rolling 3-month US Treasury Bills, 4-year certificates of deposit (CDs), and US Treasuries held to maturity within 4 years. Their "guarantee" stems from contractual obligations and credit backing (e.g., FDIC insurance, US sovereign promise), not price appreciation. The sole exception in the high-risk category is Bitcoin. Analysis of daily data from 2010-2026 across 4,419 rolling 4-year windows shows a 100% positive return rate. The worst 4-year period (April 2021 to April 2025) still yielded a +32.6% total return (~7.3% CAGR). This record is unique because Bitcoin has no issuer, promises no cash flows, and has endured severe drawdowns (70-90%), yet its market price has always recovered within a 4-year span. The key distinction is the source of the "100%": contractual assets offer known, low nominal returns, while Bitcoin's record stems purely from historical price appreciation despite extreme volatility. The article suggests that for Bitcoin, the ability to hold for 4+ years is more critical than active trading strategies.

marsbit6m ago

History's Only Asset with a 100% Win Rate After 4 Years of Holding

marsbit6m ago

How One Article Moved 45 Billion: The Collapse of a 25-Year-Old 'AI Stock Guru'

This article details the dramatic rise and near-collapse of a hedge fund built by Leopold Aschenbrenner, a 24-year-old former OpenAI researcher. The fund, named Situational Awareness, amassed $45 billion in assets within two years. Its explosive growth stemmed from Aschenbrenner's influential 165-page manifesto predicting AGI's arrival by 2027 and his high-profile Silicon Valley connections. The fund employed an extremely aggressive strategy: high concentration and 400% leverage to bet long on AI infrastructure stocks while shorting legacy software firms. In July, this structure backfired when both sides of the trade reversed simultaneously—AI stocks plunged while shorted stocks rallied—triggering massive losses that nearly wiped out all equity. Major player Jane Street reportedly lost billions. The fund's leveraged public portfolio was ultimately sold at a discount to Citadel. The SEC is now investigating banks like Goldman Sachs for their role in facilitating the fund's high-leverage trades. The article compares this to past blow-ups like Archegos, highlighting systemic failures in risk management where the pursuit of short-term profits overrode due diligence. It questions whether such risky leverage concentrated in the AI sector, currently at record highs, poses a broader systemic threat. Ironically, Aschenbrenner, who studied AI safety at OpenAI, designed a fund structure prone to uncontrolled failure. Days after the crisis, he reportedly raised another $400 million for new investments.

marsbit20m ago

How One Article Moved 45 Billion: The Collapse of a 25-Year-Old 'AI Stock Guru'

marsbit20m ago

AI Accelerates Everything: Mathematics's Line of Defense Has Fallen, Physics is Already in AI's Crosshairs

This summer, the mathematics community was shaken as OpenAI's Astra model reportedly solved 10 long-standing open problems, and Claude Fable 5 found a potential counterexample to the Jacobian conjecture. This was followed by a major shift in physics: renowned physicist Gavin E. Crooks presented an open problem in stochastic thermodynamics to Claude, which the AI solved completely in days—a task that might take a skilled graduate student months. The problem concerned constraints on entropy production statistics under the Detailed Fluctuation Theorem (DFT), a core concept in non-equilibrium physics. Claude provided a unifying geometric answer: all possible DFT-compatible distributions correspond to a convex "moment body." Its key insight was that for a fixed "gap," the distribution is uniquely determined, making any general DFT distribution a mixture of these basic two-outcome distributions. This structure implies that for given lower-order moments, the nth moment only has a sharp lower bound, with no upper bound. Claude demonstrated that numerous previously published bounds on entropy production are merely low-dimensional projections or "shadows" of this single, unified convex body. The AI-authored paper offers a complete hierarchical characterization of the moment constraints. This case signifies a potential paradigm shift: AI is progressing from solving known problems to aiding in the exploration of fundamental, unsolved scientific questions, heralding an AI-accelerated era for physics.

marsbit20m ago

AI Accelerates Everything: Mathematics's Line of Defense Has Fallen, Physics is Already in AI's Crosshairs

marsbit20m ago

Fidelity Representative Comments on the Latest Sensational Move by the U.S. Treasury Department Regarding Bitcoin's Future

A representative from Fidelity Investments has commented on recent U.S. Treasury actions and their potential impact on Bitcoin. Jurrien Timmer, Global Macro Director at Fidelity, stated that the U.S. Treasury's increased buyback of long-term bonds coupled with a focus on issuing short-term Treasury bills is putting pressure on the U.S. dollar while simultaneously supporting Bitcoin and gold. Timmer noted that the dollar weakened last week following these Treasury maneuvers, and the concurrent sharp rise in gold and Bitcoin prices reflects market expectations of a potential shift toward "fiscal dominance" and a possible erosion of Federal Reserve independence. He suggested that to successfully maintain low long-term bond yields, the Treasury's bond buyback program might need significant expansion. This scenario could force the Fed to intervene with a form of "Operation Twist" policy, potentially increasing currency debasement risk. Timmer concluded that a combination of stimulative fiscal policy and accommodative monetary policy creates a particularly negative backdrop for the dollar but is clearly favorable for gold, and Bitcoin could also benefit.

cryptonews.ru3h ago

Fidelity Representative Comments on the Latest Sensational Move by the U.S. Treasury Department Regarding Bitcoin's Future

cryptonews.ru3h ago

OpenAI Approaches Creation of Human-Level AI: What's Holding Its Release Back

OpenAI is nearing the development of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), with CEO Sam Altman stating the company expects to have an internal system they would call AGI by the end of 2026. Chief scientist for research Mark Chen estimates they are "80% of the way" there. The core of this effort is their next-generation model family, Astra, which has demonstrated advanced capabilities such as collaborative problem-solving and autonomously conducting research experiments at a speed far exceeding human capacity. However, this rapid progress has prompted significant safety concerns. Internal evaluations found Astra has achieved a critical level of "cyber capabilities," leading OpenAI to pause certain development work in early August 2026. Safety measures include a two-week pause on reinforcement learning training, tightened infrastructure isolation, and enhanced monitoring. Altman acknowledged the need for extra time to ensure a safe public release. The situation highlights the dual-track race OpenAI is running: advancing swiftly toward AGI while grappling with the security risks posed by the autonomous, powerful systems it is creating. The company's future steps depend on balancing this technological acceleration with the imperative of robust safety protocols.

cryptonews.ru3h ago

OpenAI Approaches Creation of Human-Level AI: What's Holding Its Release Back

cryptonews.ru3h ago

Trading

Spot
活动图片

Hot Categoriesright-arrow

Hot Tagsright-arrow